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The Curse of Oil
Three-part series that goes on a revealing journey through the world's oil-producing regions, beyond the familiar territory of the Middle East.
Now that the oil price appears to be rising inexorably at the pumps, newspapers are full of gloomy predictions related to our increasing addiction to perishable reserves of oil. Bill Cran's series takes a somewhat different approach.
We are in fact still amply supplied with oil on planet earth. The problem is that most of it lies in what we cosseted addicts regard as the wrong places. Getting enough oil to fill George Bush's SUV requires dealing with nasty governments or destroying the wilderness. But the relationship between oil companies, consumers and those who live where the oil is extracted is changing very rapidly. It is becoming possible for native populations to obstruct oil companies.
Cran's series leaves one with the feeling that there are no easy answers - but that, given the hysteria surrounding the subject, is no bad thing. It's also ravishingly shot.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/oil.shtml
THE CURSE OF OIL: RICH AND POOR (part one)
The discovery of oil is usually celebrated as a one-way ticket to wealth and economic growth. Yet evidence indicates that the presence of oil in a developing country makes life worse, not better, for most of the people who live there - particularly the poorest people.
This programme travels to Ecuador and Angola where, historically, oil has proved to be more of a curse than a blessing.
The programme asks how much of this is the responsibility of the oil industry and looks at how oil companies are responding to the challenges presented by this 'paradox of plenty'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/oil1.shtml
We are in fact still amply supplied with oil on planet earth. The problem is that most of it lies in what we cosseted addicts regard as the wrong places. Getting enough oil to fill George Bush's SUV requires dealing with nasty governments or destroying the wilderness. But the relationship between oil companies, consumers and those who live where the oil is extracted is changing very rapidly. It is becoming possible for native populations to obstruct oil companies.
Cran's series leaves one with the feeling that there are no easy answers - but that, given the hysteria surrounding the subject, is no bad thing. It's also ravishingly shot.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/oil.shtml
THE CURSE OF OIL: RICH AND POOR (part one)
The discovery of oil is usually celebrated as a one-way ticket to wealth and economic growth. Yet evidence indicates that the presence of oil in a developing country makes life worse, not better, for most of the people who live there - particularly the poorest people.
This programme travels to Ecuador and Angola where, historically, oil has proved to be more of a curse than a blessing.
The programme asks how much of this is the responsibility of the oil industry and looks at how oil companies are responding to the challenges presented by this 'paradox of plenty'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/oil1.shtml
For more information:
http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk
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The Caspian Sea contains some of the largest untapped energy reserves on the planet and everybody wants a share. A 1,100-mile pipeline is being built to transport the Caspian's oil to the markets of Europe and North America.
This programme follows the route of the new pipeline through some of the most geographically challenging and politically dangerous places on earth, as it makes its way from the Caspian to the Mediterranean Sea.
En route, the filmmakers encounter disgruntled Turkish villagers, British engineers enduring arctic temperatures and an American-trained force of new military recruits in Georgia.
As the demand for oil increases, fragile wilderness areas across the world are being opened up to oil exploration and furious debate.
This programme travels from the political lobbies of Washington DC to Alaska, where the pristine landscape of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could soon be the site of extensive oil development, and on to Alberta where production of 'The World's Worst Oil' is already underway.
Opposition from environmental groups is growing but so is the world's hunger for oil. We need the oil but how far will we go to get it?